We are looking for a hands-on sourcing professional to build and grow our vendor base. You will identify, evaluate, negotiate with and onboard sellers and suppliers across categories, with a strong focus on fashion and lifestyle. You will own the journey from first contact to a vendor's first live orders, and help scale supply for domestic and cross-border marketplaces.
Key responsibilities
Vendor sourcing
- Identify and acquire new vendors and sellers across assigned categories, with a focus on fashion, apparel and lifestyle.
- Map manufacturing and trading hubs (e.g., Tirupur, Surat, Jaipur, Kolkata) and build geo-specific sourcing plans for under-penetrated regions.
- Run competitor benchmarking to find selection gaps and target high-value suppliers.
- Build duplicate sourcing for key SKUs to reduce pricing and availability risk.
- Drive acquisition through inbound, outbound, field visits, trade fairs and CRM campaigns.
Vendor onboarding
- Own end-to-end onboarding: documentation, KYC, GST and compliance checks, catalog setup and go-live.
- Coordinate catalog quality, pricing and listing with category, catalog and QC teams.
- Support vendors through their first orders and fix early blockers on fulfilment, packaging and returns.
- Track onboarding turnaround time and cut drop-offs in the funnel.
Negotiation and vendor management
- Negotiate commercial terms: pricing, margins, MOQs, payment terms and lead times.
- Plan inventory and selection with vendors based on demand signals and category goals.
- Run engagement and retention programs to grow vendor contribution and stickiness.
Cross-border and supply chain support
- Help prepare vendors for cross-border selling, including export documentation and shipment readiness.
- Work with logistics partners on forward deployment of inventory (e.g., sea and air freight to the Middle East).
Reporting and collaboration
- Maintain sourcing and onboarding dashboards; report weekly on pipeline, conversions and GMV.
- Work with category, marketing, operations, finance and product teams to execute launches.
- Document sourcing playbooks and best practices for the wider team.
Requirements
Must have
- 46 years in vendor sourcing, seller acquisition, category or buying roles at an e-commerce marketplace, retailer or D2C brand.
- Proven record of sourcing and onboarding vendors at scale, with measurable impact on selection, orders or GMV.
- Strong negotiation skills and working knowledge of vendor commercials (margins, MOQs, payment terms).
- Understanding of e-commerce models (B2C, B2B, B2R) and the seller lifecycle.
- Good command of Excel or Google Sheets; comfort with funnel metrics and dashboards.
- Willingness to travel to sourcing hubs and meet vendors on the ground.
- MBA or equivalent degree in business, marketing or supply chain preferred.
Good to have
- Category knowledge in fashion, apparel, ethnic wear, handcrafts and etc,.
- Exposure to cross-border commerce, export documentation or Middle East/APAC markets.
- Experience launching new regions or categories from scratch.
- Experience with private label or regional and artisanal product sourcing.
- Ability to speak one or more regional languages (e.g., Hindi, Kannada, Tamil) to engage vendors.
Skills
- Vendor sourcing
- Seller onboarding
- Negotiation
- Category management
- Inventory planning
- Stakeholder management
- Data-driven decision making
- Process improvement